


Afternoon With the Bokoblins

by Scarlet_Claws



Series: Sunshine, Masks and Monsters [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Bokoblin Mask, Comedy, Cultural Differences, Friendly Bokoblin, Friendship, Gen, Language Barrier, Light-Hearted, Monster Mask, One Shot, Party, Slice of Life, hence the rating, light alcohol consumption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 07:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Claws/pseuds/Scarlet_Claws
Summary: Link just bought his first monster mask. Obviously, he tries to see if it really works.
Series: Sunshine, Masks and Monsters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545166
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	Afternoon With the Bokoblins

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: the author wishes botw included befriending monsters mechanics even if it would go completely against canon.

Link crouched in the grass, looking over the ridge of the slope. Two bokoblins were sitting there, enjoying a meal of apples, perfectly unaware that they were standing in the way of a couple of boulders. Link had already pushed it down many times but they never learned. Or maybe they had forgotten.

It was a beautiful day on the Great Plateau and Link wondered what he was really doing here. Maybe it was because he had the opportunity to do so, and so he had to try it. Maybe it was because he had always been curious about the various monsters that opposed him since the start.

Not that it mattered. He pulled his new mask from his Sheika Slate and stuffed his head into it. A few adjustments and a check in a puddle of water later, he was ready.

He didn’t hop down the slope as he would usually do. Instead, he took the long way, the path, hunching over with his arms spread and his knees bent, grunting softly like he had seen bokoblins do so many times. He felt perfectly ridiculous, so he tried harder.

Despite all his preparation, his died red clothes and his mask, he still tensed and stood still when the monsters noticed him approaching. They were two red ones and he knew that he could easily overpower them if he wished, but this wasn’t about fighting. They approached, sniffing the air cautiously, and Link didn’t move until they were within touching distance.

Snort. One started screaming and Link tensed, sheltering his face with an arm before he realized that it was a laugh. A very loud laugh. The other bokoblin joined in and started to jump around, excited.

Link lowered his arm. They sniffed him again, their snouts within biting distance of his face. Link tensed but didn’t cover himself this time, knowing that there were not dangerous. He even sniffed back, trying his best to emulate the soft grunts they produced as they did so.

He suddenly had an idea. Slowly, he pulled his sheika slate, watching the monster’s reaction as he did so. One of them jumped back when the device beeped. The other just tried to take a closer look at it and Link had to hold it out of their grasp. Once the hero of Hyrule had made him understood that he wasn’t giving the slate to them, he tapped on it a few times and moments later he had an apple in his hand.

The moment Link presented his offering, it was snatched away by the bokoblin that had stayed next to him with a gleeful cry. Weird device or not, they knew a fresh apple when they saw one. The bokoblin ate it in one big bite, making the other cry in indignation that the treat wasn’t shared. There was some stomping and shrieking, but all was quickly resolved when Link produced a second apple.

Which was snatched by the first one, again. The screaming resumed.

Link, with a roll of his eyes, just tossed the third apple at the storming monster, that made sure that the other looked at them as they ate it slowly. Well, slowly for a bokoblin, anyway.

Then came some more sniffing, but there was a glint of hope in their eyes. The bravest of the pair reached for Link’s slate but was swatted lightly, just to make it clear that he wasn’t sharing that. Who knew if he would get it back after, and he had no weapons on him.

He took the time, while he was examined, to observe them as well. He had spent some time walking with Lonni as she travelled and she had explained the differences between male and female bokoblins to him. And yes, while they looked the same at first glance, as they did so from afar or during the flurry of a fight, there were the details that gave them in: it was a he and a she. He wondered if there were mates.

He was so taken by his examination that he didn’t notice that the female bokoblin had been repeating the same series of grunts at him. Unsure what to do, he copied them, which seemed to surprise her if the way she straightened was of any indication. She replied with another sound, then pointed at her companion and made another.

It took Link a whole three seconds to realize those were their names. 

“Erm...” he wanted to ask for them again. He looked at him, then at her, and repeated the grunts he had been just taught.

They exchanged a look. They probably thought that they were discreet, but really they weren’t.

“Merp,” she repeated for Link, slowly, while pointing at herself. “Bork.” That was the name of her friend.

They stared at her.

“Link,” he replied, in his bokoblinest voice possible.

“Nirk,” Merp said.

“Nenk.” Bork said.

She bonked him on the head. “Nirk!”

“Link,” repeated Link.

“Nink?”

“Nink.”

Link sighed. Nink it was, he guessed. Better than nothing.

Merp suddenly grabbed him by the arm and started to drag him, rambling about something. Her grip was strong and Link had no other choice but to follow her wherever she went. Bork seemed happy to tag along, answered Merp’s long-winded comments with short grunts.

She dragged him over the old stairs leading up to the Temple of Time, in the direction of the nearby Tower. Link was starting to guess where this was going. The two bokoblins that lived at its foot had shot him with an arrow, once, although they didn’t seem to share the same sentiment at back then when they saw him this time. Kilton had said, had _guaranteed_ that the mask would work, yet Link was still rather tense when the new pair came over to see what all the fuss was about.

The first thing they did was smell Link. Maybe that was the way they greeted each other. Maybe Link just had a strange smell. They came much closer than Merp and Bork had, probably because they trusted them to not show them anything too dangerous.

They asked for Link’s name. This time, Link recognized the grunts.

“Nink,” he said.

The two new bokoblins were called Car and Bar. It was safe to assume that they were twins, although all bokoblins could be twins that Link would be none the wiser. They poked and pulled at his ears, talking loudly. They were probably asking questions but Link was none the wiser and just stared at them. Bork and Merp cut in at this point, growling louder than they did, and before Link knew it they were all screaming.

He wasn’t really surprised.

But the agitation attracted two more bokoblins over from the old abandoned fort, and this time there was a black one among them. They didn’t notice her approaching but Link did, and now he was really nervous. He would quickly dispose of the red bokoblins if they would start to notice something, but a black one was a different story. He knew what kind of strength they could put into hits, even empty-handed. Of course he did. He had felt it firsthand.

The black one only had to yell once for all the others to quiet down and scurry back so she could sniff a very nervous Link. She squinted at him, stared at the mouth of his mask, directly at Link’s face. Then she circled him. Then she sniffed him again.

This was taking longer than the others.

Link pulled out his Sheika Slate. When she saw that, the black one screamed and balled her fists, ready to strike, but Merp started to chant something, joined by Bork.

Huh. So that’s how you said apple in bokoblin.

But Link didn’t pull out an apple; he wasn’t going to take any risks. What he dropped at the feet of the black one was a prime raw steak, probably cut out from one of those annoying wolves that kept harassing him every time he went to Gerudo Highlands. Their audience, for all their usual screaming and grunting, was a good audience, that gasped for emphasis.

The black one sniffed the steak suspiciously. She seemed to know better than to trust a steak that had come out of a burst of blue light, but at least she quickly decided that it smelled too tasty to care. Seconds later, she was happily chomping on it.

Link turned around to a round of hopeful eyes.

Well, there were five of them now and his arms were big enough to hold five steaks. Moments later, they were all happily chomping on their snack while he bit into an apple.

Car and Bar, the twins, were the first to be finished. They jumped to their feet, shaking their bows, and started to sing a song as they danced. Link recognized his new name and the word for apple, at least, so he guessed that they were talking about him. When they were done, everyone started to bang their fists on the ground or on their thighs. He did the same.

Bork called his name, trying to get his attention before he pointed at the slate. He mimed holding it, then pointed at Link, growling slowly. He had at least caught on the fact that Link didn’t speak their language, that for which the latter was grateful. Link complied with his request. It couldn’t hurt to show them.

Having six bokoblins wanting to look at one tiny screen wasn’t the best idea. There was some growling and bonking, at least until the black one was standing at the best spot. The others seemed content with waiting for their turn if that meant they wouldn’t be punched. Link was a little taken aback by how freely they seemed to hit each other. He hoped they wouldn’t do it with him anytime soon.

He switched through the menus at first, wondering how much the bokoblins could see given that they still had not figured out that he was one of them. He was corrected in his assumption that they didn’t when Bork pointed at his apple stash and cried the name for it. Link wished he knew the word for yes or good.

He didn’t show them the monster parts he had gathered from his battles.

Instead, he decided to them his runes. Stasis needed a subject to experiment on so he passed, magnesis didn’t have anything metallic available around, so he went for the bombs. They were all gathered on the top of the hill where Car and Bar lived, so if he went for a round one it would roll away from them and then he could make it explode safely...

The second he enacted his plan, one of the twins screamed something and they all went barrelling after it. Link stared at them with his mouth agape until Merp waved at him to join them.

Well, as long as he didn’t detonate the bomb...

Playing with them while continuing to act as a bokoblin was tiring, but they didn’t seem to care when he walked more upright than he should. He was starting to suspect that there was more to the mask than what he could see. Had Kilton had used some sort of magic to make it work so well?

The game they played was seemingly simple: kick the ball at each other. When someone didn’t catch it, they all pointed at them and laughed, except when it was the black one. You were allowed to bonk another bokoblin if they annoyed you but thankfully no one did that to Link. Maybe because he didn’t say anything mean.

He did lean a few more words then. Among others, the one for ball, and one that probably meant clumsy or stupid. He wondered if there were nuances that he wasn’t catching in their voices because a lot of their language sounded the same. Was their mine so simple that they actually used fewer words than hylians?

They played well into the afternoon, after which the black one, that was called Rasa, grabbed the bokoblin that had come over with her and dragged her away. Car and Bar taught ‘Nink’ the word for bow, then made him understand that they were about to practice it a little if he wanted to stay and watch. Merp actually saved him the hassle of having to figure out how to answer them: in her usual manner, she grabbed Link and dragged him away, to the woods.

They spend the rest of the afternoon looking for things to snack on, like mushrooms. When the sun was at its last rays, all three of them sat in the grass and Link showed them through his Compendium, leaning the words for all the different things.

That’s when he learned the truth about the bokoblin language. He was struggling with a word, or at least he was struggling according to Merp, that kept correcting him even when he had the impression that he was saying it right. She was frustrated to the point where she seemed ready to bonk him when she suddenly grabbed his hand and made him do a gesture as she said the word.

This was a revelation for Link. He had not been paying attention to her hands, to anyone’s hands until then. It made a lot of sense that they would use those to nuance their speech. He tried again, she corrected him once, and when he repeated it back to her with the right gesture both she and Bork slapped their thighs enthusiastically.

Link thought of Lonni, the Akkala girl that loved monsters. She would probably love to know that. He made a mental note to go and visit her next time he dropped by just to tell her all about it. She’d probably want to know some bokoblin words as well. He smiled as he thought of his friend.

The evening was there. Link watched the sunset over the Gerudo highlands with Bork and Merp. It was very beautiful but he had something on his mind, an idea that had been pestering even since he had offered the meat to Rasa the black.

Merp and Bork invited him to come and rest with them, but he shook his head vigorously and pointed in the direction of Rasa’s camp. He didn’t have any word to explain it but they were at least willing to follow them. Bokoblins were too curious for their own good. Not that he wanted anything bad to happen to them after having spent half a day of fun with them.

Car and Bar certainly noticed them from the top of their hill when they passed by and followed them without being asked. They seemed fairly excited about this surprise night trip. The only one that seemed unhappy about it was Rasa herself, that screamed and shook her fists at them. She made no gesture towards the barrels of explosives all about their camp so Link ignored her as he approached the fire.

He took out his Sheika slate and summoned raw gourmet meat. Rasa quieted down instantly, sniffing at the steak with great interest, as did all the others. Link, smiling, mounted it over the fire to cook. He could at least celebrate the fact that he had not been attacked so far.

Car and Bar started dancing. (Seriously, Link had no idea which was which, even as he had growled more used to recognize each bokoblin individually.) Pip, Rasa’s companion, started drumming on the trunk by the fire with his bat and they stared a song. This time it wasn’t improvised, or at least Link thought it wasn’t, because the others started to sing as well and clap their hands. The hylian could clap his hands along, at least.

Maybe it was the singing, unless it was the delicious smell of gourmet meat, that alerted the skull camp down the road that there was a party. Shortly after the end of the song, they were joined by four more bokoblins, three red and a blue one. This time, Rasa really wasn’t amused, probably because she was worried there wouldn’t be enough meat for everyone to enjoy it. Her protests were drowned by the crowd of cheers when the newcomers showed the barrel they had taken along with them. It was later revealed that said barrel was full of alcohol, which explained a lot.

The bokoblins from the skull camp didn’t come to sniff Link at first, but they certainly did when the latter summoned more meat to cook, all of them coming close to smell him. Link, politely and more confident in his manners, returned the favour and asked for their names. Merp seemed quite proud of him after that, so he guessed he did well.

He was content with sitting to the side and watch them have their fun, but that wasn’t counting on Car and Bar. As a thank you for the meal, they decided to teach him a bokoblin dance, that was way more complex than just flailing your arms around while you jumped. Link seemed fairly decent at it at least. They applauded him when he was done.

He was more than glad for the opportunity to rest after. Bokoblins were more enduring than what he had thought they would be when it came to hopping around a campfire all the while screaming their lyrics. At least Bar and Car were, and the ones that joined them after.

Food and drinks were passed around in wooden bowls. Link tasted the alcohol and decided that, while it wasn’t the best he had tried, it wasn’t half bad.

Then came some storytelling. Someone from the skull camp said a short one, then they all started to bang their bowls for Rasa to tell a second one. She protested at first, weakly, with a smile on her face, obviously enjoying the attention, then suddenly sprung to life in the midst of cheers and applause.

Turned out that she was a great storyteller, or at least a great mime. Link understood that she was describing a hunt right away, maybe one she had been on. There was a boar, that she mimicked perfectly as she went around the fire with her fingers to her lips for its tusks. And then there was the stalking by the hunter, slowly, through the bushes. Then he pounces! But the boar gets away. So he runs, and runs, and goes deeper in the forest... And he was never seen again.

Or at least that’s what Link understood of it.

The Bokoblins enjoyed the story immensely. Another jumped into the circle to try and steal the show but they just weren’t as good. Nerveless they were enjoyable, and Link sat back with his stomach full and pleasant buzz from the alcohol.

The party slowly died down after that. One by one, the bokoblins exited into the night. Link, feeling like he deserved to sleep in a comfortable bed after this long day, said goodbye to everyone and went to the forest, where no one could see him, to teleport away.

He came back. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after but, each time he felt like he needed a break, he pulled his Sheika slate and teleported himself to the Great Plateau, back to his unlikeliest friends.


End file.
